Quod Scripsi, Scripsi

Heaven’s Blog

In my continuing exploration of Orthodox Christianity, I have browsed various web sites related to Orthodoxy in America. Starting from the OCA site I found the site for the American Carpatho-Russian Orthodox Church which is under the Church of Constantinople. Apparently.

From there, I found a page for the church I attended for a time many years ago. I’m not Russian, it’s a story for another time, but I attended and sang in the choir. The new priest there has a blog, and I’m certain that if I still lived in Pittsburgh I would seek him out as a spiritual guide. His blog is brilliant. As I’ve read I’ve found myself agreeing over and over with him and learning new and fascinating things.

I’m very wary of following people. However, if I could find a person like this to talk to it would go a long way to restoring some sanity for me.

Ireland and the Troubles

A friend mentioned to me the other day that he had seen an episode of “No Reservations” on the Travel Channel where the host, Anthony Bourdain, travelled to Northern Ireland. Bourdain met a Protestant family and ate with them, then met a Catholic family and ate with them. Then he brought both families together at a restaurant, without telling either family that the other was coming. I did not see the episode, but my friend related to me an observation that Mr. Bourdain apparently made about the types of grafitti and billboards he saw in the various neighborhoods.

Again, I’m going on second-hand reports, but his comments centered on the fact that Catholic areas had primarily images of gun-toting men in hoods,while the Protestant areas had images of smiling politicians and comments about the peace and the “laughter of our children”.

If that is the case, and his comments have been correctly reported, then I would humbly suggest that Mr. Bourdain is an insensitive jerk. Nothing as complex as the situation in Northern Ireland can be summarized in a 30 second segment on a travel show. It was, at best, irresponsible of him to try, at worst it could get someone killed.

Next I suppose Mr. Bourdain will go to Palestine and observe that Tel Aviv is very modern and the West Bank is full of holes. Maybe those folks should just move! Give that man a Nobel Prize.